It's no secret that companies gather information about you and your family, which is used to more effectively market products. But now the curtain has been pulled back to give consumers a glimpse of just what is known about them.

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The Acxiom Corporation, which has gathered information on households, income, shopping preferences and the leisure habits of most adults, is now making that information available to us all.

On Wednesday, it launched a free website, aboutthedata.com, where consumers can see some of the information that has been gathered, including their age, marital status, number of children in their household, cars they own, and their hobbies and interests.

The data is available only to consumers who provide their birthdate, home address and the last four digits of their social security number, which provides a level of security.

So how accurate is it?

I entered the information to see what it said about me. It had my age right and correctly said that I'm married, but that our daughter is now living on her own. It told me that I'm a PC/Windows user, not an MAC/Apple computer owner.

It correctly indicated that I have a graduate degree and that I've lived in our home for more than 14 years. It also identified my interest in cooking and my support of charitable causes, but it came up short in a few areas.

Neither my wife nor I camp or hunt, which Acxiom suggested is among our interests. And while it had the right month for my birthdate, the date itself was wrong. The website allows you to make any necessary corrections.

Acxiom says government records, public records and publicly available data is one source of their information.

Data from surveys and questionnaires consumers fill out, as well as data from companies where consumers have been provided notice about how the data will be used is also a source of its information.